French reality TV under scrutiny after deaths in Cambodia

It is one of the most popular genres on French TV, with hits including shy farmers looking for love on tractors, bickering couples hitchhiking across the developing world, people locked in loft apartments together and bitchy competitions over dinner menus and table decorations. But French reality TV has been plunged into soul-searching over its future after two deaths on the nation's longest-running reality show: the tough desert island challenge, Koh-Lanta.

French police were on Tuesday preparing to examine the rushes of Koh-Lanta's latest shoot on a beach in Cambodia after 25-year-old contestant Gérald Babin died of a heart attack while filming the first episode of the new series. Participants in the show must survive on an uninhabited island by completing tough physical challenges, often to win food.

When Babin, a telephone counsellor from the outskirts of Paris, died during filming on 22 March, the channel said he had suffered from cramps during the first challenge. He was given first aid by the on-set doctor and evacuated to hospital where he died.

It was the first death on a French reality programme since the genre hit the country's TV screens more than a decade ago.

But after days of shocked headlines and several anonymous accounts claiming that Babin should have been taken to hospital more quickly, what media called "the curse of Koh-Lanta" struck again on Monday, when the production's doctor, Thierry Costa, was found dead in his hotel room near the set.

He left a suicide note, handwritten on hotel paper, in which he said his name had been sullied by insinuations that not enough was done for Babin and he couldn't stand the media pressure.

He wrote: "In the past few days my name has been tarnished in the media … I am certain that I treated Gerald in a respectable manner, as a patient and not as a contestant."

Costa, 38, a doctor from north-eastern France who had been in charge of medical support on the series for four years, administered first aid to Babin before he was taken to hospital.

The show's production company, Adventure Line Productions, which has filed a legal complaint against any accusations it was in the wrong, said Costa's suicide should "encourage those who accuse and comment indiscriminately to exercise responsibility". The company praised Costa's "great professionalism".

His death has led to the immediate cancellation of this year's Koh-Lanta, the 16th series of one France's biggest reality TV shows, which usually attracts 7 million Friday night viewers on TF1, France's most popular private channel. Each episode brings in an estimated €3.5m (£2.9m) in advertising revenue.

France came relatively late to reality TV, with its first show in 2001. But the Koh-Lanta deaths have sparked a debate about the dangers and stress of shows in which members of the public must carry out extreme physical feats to win.

Jérémie Assous, the French lawyer who famously led a legal challenge demanding that French reality TV contestants should get proper work contracts and salaries, is acting for Babin's family.

In a round of TV and radio interviews, he said Costa's professionalism as a doctor was not in doubt but he argued that having one on-set doctor for more than 100 contestants and crew was slim and that production companies could do more to ensure safety and security. He said: "The original name of [Koh-Lanta] was Survivor. The trailer says: 'Only one will survive'." He said the production pushed contestants to the limit.

Françoise Laborde of the French media regulator CSA said it would be consulting on whether to issue new guidelines.

Sourced : Guardian